Club Eight Finishes Second at Head of the Charles

Yale passing Cambridge Boat Club at the 2011 Head of the Charles

Oct 20, 2012

BOSTON – The Yale heavyweights had a strong start to the Head of the Charles on Saturday. The Bulldogs took second in the club eight, an event that 38 crews entered. This result is the best finish for Yale in the club eight since 2009 when the Bulldogs won the event.

Yale started sixth behind BU but made up more than six seconds on the Terriers by the time they passed Riverside Boat Club. Both crews had already passed bow number four, a crew from GW, and so Yale came into that first checkpoint in third position (3:22.024) behind Princeton (3:21.469) and Brown (3:16.429).

The Bulldogs made the pass around BU by the next checkpoint at Radcliffe's Weld Boathouse to put themselves in second behind Brown. Princeton was still out ahead but Yale clocked in at 8:05.352 to Princeton's 8:07.898.

Coming past Cambridge Boat Club Yale's lead over Princeton grew slightly to a little less than three seconds. Carothers steered a great line heading into Eliot Bridge and the crew put up a consistent split for the final stretch of the course to capture second place.

Brown started first and without any crews to pass the Bears won the event handily, posting a time of 14:41.266. Yale was second and the only other crew to finish under 15 minutes with a time of 14:58.075. Princeton took third (15:00.860), followed by BU (15:15.873), Northeastern (15:16.166) and Harvard (15:19.207).

Tomorrow Yale has two boats racing, a championship four and a championship eight. The champ four races at 2:32 p.m. with bow number nine, while the champ eight starts at 2:55 p.m. with bow number 16. A live webcast from the top of Cambridge Boat Club is available here.